My typical tactic whenever I have a cold is to drug myself into oblivion with as many pharmaceuticals as I can get my hands on. Unfortunately, any cold medication that works is on the list of “things that will cause you to have a retarded flipper baby” so this year I’m SOL on my usual MO.

After a couple days of experimenting with the “if I take my vitamins, and lots of fluids, it won’t be that bad, it’s just a cold” tactic, I came to the conclusion that wishing really hard does not mean I won’t rub my nose raw with kleenex, and that it won’t feel like my head is so stuffed it should just pop off my body.

So I can’t do my usual. And I can’t do nothing. Desperate times clearly call for desperate measures.

Enter: Nasal Irrigation.

It really is just as gross as it sounds. You mix up a saline solution in a vessel that looks a little like a teapot, except instead of a normal spout, it’s got something that looks a bit like a buttplug. For your face.

You stick the plug/spout into one nostril, tilt your head to the side over a sink, and the solution runs through your sinuses and out your other nostril (and into your throat if you’re not careful or are overly enthusiastic – be ready, and I advise you spit, don’t swallow). It also helps to relax so you don’t choke.

It’s completely disgusting, but it works. And the science even seems legit.

I can tell you that for me, it got my totally, painfully blocked sinuses unclogged and moving again. And it’s always easier to function when you don’t feel like your eyeballs are trying to give birth to your brain.

So yes. NetiPot. Disgusting, but worth it. Not unlike having kids (or so I’m told – I’ll confirm that one soon enough).

The target right now is a pair of Tilley travel pants, purchased just before heading to Morocco 2 years ago.

Two years ago I was in a frenzy, prepping for our imminent wedding, seeing a personal trainer twice weekly and shrinking due partly to stress. Let me advise you, this is NOT when you want to invest in clothing you expect to ever fit into again.

My brother’s fiancee has been recommending clean eating to me for a while now, and out of desperation in terms of fitting into these pants again, I picked up an issue of Clean Eating Magazine, then the book The Eat Clean Diet, Recharged. (For what it’s worth, this post is entirely unsolicited.)

The basics of clean eating are to have 5-6 small meals a day, each one including a serving of lean protein and a serving of complex carbohydrates from fruit/veggies. And 2-4 of those meals should also include some sort of whole-grain starch.

There are of course other elements – natural sweeteners only, including fermented foods (yogurt, keffir, soy) for digestive balance, drinking lots of water/herbal tea, eliminating refined flours, increasing exercise. But the aforementioned 6 meals and their components are at the core of the plan.

I have tried countless other diets and “weight loss/get healthy” plans; weight watchers, body for life, wild rose herbal d-tox. They all fell terribly short. I couldn’t stick to them. Or if I did, I didn’t see results (WW, I’m lookin’ at you!).

Inevitably, the biggest frustration I have with any sort of “diet plan” is that they don’t focus on REAL food. They encourage a whole pantry full of edible food-like substances. Ultimately I get frustrated a) spending money on those, b) feeling uneasy eating them and c) NOT COOKING!

Clean Eating is the exact opposite of that. In fact, were I not quite comfortable around the kitchen, clean eating might be much trickier.

There are recipes to follow, but there is also lots of room for improvisation. It means I can use up what’s in my fridge & pantry pretty easily – reducing waste, sticking with seasonal products. The way I try to cook on a day-to-day basis.

It does take quite a lot of time planning out and prepping 6 meals every evening. The example meal plans are called “cooler” plans, since the only way to ensure you’re eating clean on a day-to-day basis is to pack up a cooler of meals for the day.

I’ve been on this for 3 weeks now and those pants I couldn’t even do up before Christmas, fit again. Along with a whole other section of my wardrobe that didn’t.

I haven’t even been exercising more than normal (weekly yoga, a few other walks during the week – shamefully I have yet to go for a run in 2010), though I have declared it to be “Sober January” – a dry month after the excesses of the holiday season.

Everyone’s got to do what works for them. And I know there are bunches of programs that work for all sorts of people. And I have FINALLY found one that works for me!

If you don’t mind cooking, or eating regularly (I’m pretty happy to stuff my face every 3 hours, I know others see that as a hassle), I can recommend this one. It may work for you too.

There are a few things I’ve learned since my earlier post about running:

I highly prefer running first thing in the morning, while it’s dark. If the sun hasn’t even started the day yet, I feel like I’m running during some sort of magical extra time and don’t have to acknowledge that it’s actually taking up time in my day (and in some small way, perhaps not actually happening). It’s also more practical in terms of avoiding traffic, which is nice. Fewer people out and about in general to see me heaving up my lungs is a good thing.

It’s still all about the music, and I love having the ability to change up the songs I’m listening to on a run-by-run basis. Another motivating selection in the playlist includes Fat Bottom Girls by Queen. It cracks me up and keeps me running through some more challenging pieces.

Having an immediate indoor option has removed yet another barrier to excuses: the weather. We’ve had a doozie of a November in Vancouver, with uncharacteristically intense wind and rain. More than once the idea of running outside in the weather was more than I could handle. But now I live in a building with a gym. Instead of making yet another excuse, I go downstairs and run indoors. Interestingly, when running indoors, I prefer listening to podcasts, rather than a musical playlist.

Neil, like the champ (and weather disregarder) he is, still goes for a light jog outside when I run indoors so the dog gets walked.

Speaking of Neil the champ, I finally understand what a good workout buddy can do. Another of my favourite “I don’t want to do this” avoidance mechanisms is to pick a fight with him instead of going out. Spoiled brat? Check. But he’s learned that if he refuses to engage, and just keeps getting dressed to go for the run. Eventually, I will get over myself and just go along. I’m getting better at not being an asshole, and having his gentle persistent insistence is one of the key things that have kept me going.

I still manage to psych myself out about just about every run. Week four was hard, really hard. And for the first couple runs of week five, even though the running has been physically easier, I keep panicking about “oh my god, I’ve gone so far, been running so long, I’m going to crash into a blubbering blob of fail any second!”

I don’t, but I’m still kindof convinced I will. Which does not bode well for tomorrow morning.

I’m supposed to run for twenty. minutes. straight.

So far the longest continuous stretch of running I’ve done is 8 minutes. I have no idea how the hell I’m going to manage to run for 20. I am officially panicking.

If you don’t see the twitter or facebook notifications that I finished the run tomorrow morning, it means I fell down dead. But if you do see the notifications, it would mean a whole lot if you piped up and said “hey, way to go” – because those occasional bursts of encouragement have been a huge motivator so far. And although I’m more than halfway, I still have a long way to go.

**Update** Made it

Considering my limited success with making it more than a few weeks into any sort of running habit, the odds are certainly against me. But this year I have two new weapons in my motivation arsenal:

1. My parents have been putting some serious work into getting healthier this past year. It’s awesome to see. Healthy eating and exercise. Who knew? My mom specifically has gone from a size 14/16 last Christmas to a size 4/6 now. And when I was there for thanksgiving, she gave me a pair of her “fat jeans” from about halfway through the journey. I can not feel okay fitting into my mom’s fat pants mom jeans. I love her, but no.

2. The Couch to 5k iPhone app.*

I’ve tried running with interval programs before, as well as with the excellent Couch to 5k podcasts. Except it never fails that I end up becoming bored or frustrated before the end of the program.

I am not good at thinking while exercising. My brain is too busy keeping me from falling down dead from exertion/exhaustion to also remember how long the intervals are supposed to be and which one I’m on. The podcasts are great for that, but they were always lacking…. something.

Turns out it was the music.

I am far from an audiophile, but I’m as susceptible as anyone to the effects music has on moods and what I’m doing. A road trip just isn’t a road trip without the original Don Henly version of “Boys of Summer” blasting as I head off at sunrise. And Neil and I will always stop whatever we’re saying or doing, smile, and start singing along to the Beach Boys, since we’ve got the happy, poppy harmonies nailed.

But I never knew what kind of music I enjoyed while running.

Turns out, it’s hard, industrial-style rock. I don’t get much into a heavy bass grove, or even the high bpm repetitive beats of techno (which are generally popular for any sort of cardio activity), but give me some hard, crashing toms and assorted chest-thumping cacophony and I’m in heaven.

My revelation came when, using a random playlist with the c25k app, my iPhone delivered up Lounge Fly by the Stone Temple Pilots. And suddenly I’m no longer on the hamster wheel in the gym (it was raining, normally I’d be outside), I’m a crazy free-runner, literally pounding the pavement in time to the smash and crash of assorted metal and drums, leaping on, over and off of tall buildings.

I was actually a bit sad when the running interval ended, because for the first time ever (running-wise anyhow) I was in the zone.

So now, of course, I’m scouring my fluff-heavy music collection for some other tunes to run to. I’ve got the entirety of the Nine Inch Nails catalog, and a bit of Kraftwerk and Joy Division, and I want to add your suggestions.

Drop a comment with your favourite industrial or post-industrial songs. Or any other music you find it inspiring to run to. Or anything else that helps you get in the groove that I can use to make it to actually running 5k by the end of the year!

*Fun disclosure thing: I bought the app and happen to like it. So I’m sharing that with you. The end.

At one point, the kids and camp counselors stage a coup, lock up crazy Tony, and have an all-night food-fueled orgy of gorging. If you haven’t seen it, or need a reminder, check out the video clip. The carnage starts around the 6-minute mark.

Anyhow, I was not quite so hedonistic, but when I got home last night, poked at my millet and stared at the box of supplements again, I broke. I could not face imposing this horrible cleanse upon myself for another minute.

Even though it was a day and a half early, I nixed the entire stupid wild rose herbal d-tox and went to Wendy’s.

After a Jr. Bacon Cheeseburger combo, with a coke natch, some gummy worms and beer, and a bit of running around at Ultimate (which I haven’t had the energy for during the entire stupid cleanse), I felt orders of magnitude better.

And this is not “I did a cleanse and it made me feel better” better, it’s “I finally gave my body some real food and actual calories and let them remain in my person long enough to absorb some energy and nutrients.”

As far as I’m concerned, I will never, ever do a cleanse again, and I wouldn’t recommend them to anyone else, either.

If you asked me today whether or not I’d ever do this again, the answer is a resounding NO.

I might be a bit slimmer (that’s a big might, and remember, brought on by having liquefied my digestive tract for nearly 2 weeks), but I don’t otherwise feel any notable benefits from doing this so far.

And the negatives (being highly annoyed all the time, making everyone feel awkward by refusing cake/beer/anything except green tea and the blueberries my poor mom went out and got for me at my dad’s birthday, being insanely tired most of the time, did I mention the crankiness? and the pooping?) far outweigh the positives.

I’ll check in again once it’s all done, and once I’ve hopefully regained my usually cheerier outlook.

It didn’t come entirely out of nowhere – a few people I know have done this particular program. Others have done food/alcohol restriction experiments, and yet others are necessarily eating modified diets because of allergies and food sensitivities.

I looked into it, figured it’s only 12 days long, and wondered how I’d feel cutting out refined sugars, most other sugars, flours, dairy and anything fermented. So many people I know have reported feeling many, many times better after modifying their diet to reduce these particular components. For 12 days, what have I got to lose (other than a few dollars and a bunch of toxins)?

The specific herbs in the D-Tox package are designed to help re-set optimal liver performance (biliherb) and the others to “cleanse” the system (cleansaherb, laxaherb and cl extract) – I expect to be having a very literally craptacular time in a couple days!

The diet to go along with it is designed to regulate pH in the body, by separating foods into aklaline forming, acid forming and neutral foods. During the cleanse, one is to eat mostly alkaline and neutral foods (80% plus), a few healthier acid forming foods (>20%) and eliminate other food groups entirely. Those curious about the particulars of the eating requirements can check out the document here.

So far it hasn’t been too painful – caffeine is blessedly allowed, so I’ve had black coffee and green tea today. I can also have butter and/or olive oil on most things. Overall, the day really wasn’t bad in terms of what I could eat or changes from my regular routine.

Breakfast was an egg, fried in a bit of butter, with sauteed red peppers and onions, topped with fresh tomato. This would usually be toast or cereal, if anything, so the egg scramble was a real treat!

Snacks were a few raspberries and some almonds. Almonds are a golden food on this plan for some reason, and I can eat as many as my wee heart desires. I do need to pack better snacks for tomorrow. I can’t rely on the work vending machine for a pick-me-up on the cleanse.

Lunch was pretty typical. I had the usual green salad made from the bounty of our CSA share, dressed with lemon juice and some really great olive oil. I also brought a potato to “bake” in the microwave and doused it with butter and some sea salt. I’d have had chives too, but I forgot them. Again this was actually a bit nicer than my typical meals. I wouldn’t normally bother with the potato, but I was paranoid of the salad not being filling enough and wanted to ensure I had some more bulk.

Dinner was a couple quick peppered fillets of sole, brown rice, and another salad. Dessert will be the rest of the raspberries (the diet does allow domestic fruits, but only one serving of sweet fruits per day).

So far, at the end of the day, I don’t feel all that different.

I’ve felt fuzzy off and on (pretty standard for a Monday). I feel bloated (also not out of the ordinary) and I have yet to poop (story of my life).

I am a little more irritable than usual, but I was irritable yesterday too, and I think it has more to do with the fact that my apartment looks like a laundromat, a campsite, a pet store and a catering school all showed up, partied, barfed their entire contents and left, than with the lack of sugar, flour or dairy.

We’ll see what tomorrow brings.

Have you ever done a cleanse or something similar? How’d it go?

This is very bad.

So far, this is perhaps the worst week for me to fall down ill.

I have an entire day full of very important meetings on Thursday, complete with people flying in from out of town to attend.

I have a major event to send people to that needs the prep & setup finished.

I have a bunch of training to give.

I have a houseguest right now.

I have a party being thrown for me on Saturday.

So if everyone could share their wacky, crazy sickness-aversion remedies, or just wish really, really hard for me to stay well enough to function until Sunday, that would be very much appreciated.

I really, REALLY didn’t want to run yesterday. What I really, REALLY did want was Sushi for lunch. And Sushi I got, along with agreeing to take over all the dog walking for the rest of the week if I didn’t run after work.

Speaking of Sushi (if I may digress for a moment) – despite the fact that I’ve been running 2-3 days/week and am going on my 3rd week of 2x sessions of getting my ass thoroughly kicked, I have been unimpressed that the number on the scale is not going down, and the pants aren’t yet feeling any looser. So I figured I’d start tracking what I’ve been eating (which I thought wasn’t all that bad).

And I found that indeed, what I eat most of the time is not all that bad. But I tend to ruin it completely with one disastrous food decision each day. For example: did you know that Gyoza is about 150 calories per dumpling? So 4 tiny Gyoza is about 20% of the calories I’m supposed to consume for an entire day? Me neither.

So now I’m using SparkPeople.com to track what I’m eating. And looking up what the caloric content for most foods are before I eat them. So far so good – though it’s only been one day.

Anyhow, back to the running. Last night we wrapped up week 5 of the Couch to5k program. It was a bit of an odd one.

Instead of doing 3 identical runs over a week, this week runners move into doing 3 progressively harder runs, going for longer runs each time. Day one is 3x 5min runs with 3 min breaks in between, day 2 is 2x 8min runs with a 5 minute break in between and day 3 is one 20 minute run.

Let that soak in again – twenty. minutes. of running. no stopping.

And let me remind you – this is on a program that, 5 weeks ago, had me running a mere 60 seconds at a time without stopping, and feeling like I was going to barf while my head and lungs exploded at the end of that burst.

To say I was a little nervous would be an understatement.

Anyhow.

I was all ready to brag about my 8 minute runs once I finished them, but I was foiled. I (usually) run on Mondays, Wednesdays & Fridays, and see my Trainer on Tuesdays & Thursdays. That particular day he had decided that he wanted to a cardio benchmark, and had me do a 12-minute run. With the caveat that I could slow down and walk at any point if I felt I needed to.

So I told myself I’d get to the 8 minute mark (since I’d be doing just that the next day) and see how I felt. And at 8 minutes, I felt… okay. So I kept running. For another 4 minutes. And it was fine!

I ran 12 minutes without stopping! At a 12min/mile pace!

I JUST RAN A MILE!

So the next day I did my 8 minute runs, and figured I’d save the bragging for after I finished the 20 minute run.

Run day came. And along with it, the promise of rain and snow. I put off the usual lunchtime run (when it was still pretty pleasant out), and opted for after work, hoping I’d feel more like running later on.

I didn’t. I wanted to do anything else.

But slightly more powerful than that, I wanted the run to be over with – and the only way to make that happen is to go out and do it already.

And so I did.

I ran.

For twenty whole minutes.

Without stopping.

And didn’t barf!

With tiny rainy snow-pellets pounding me in the face, and soaking wet feet. I did it.

And then I went home at ate soup. And skipped dessert. Stupid Gyoza.

I’m still doing the running thing (just finished the first run of Week 5! w00t! and also Barf! (or at least that’s what it feels like) but I’m not seeing any results other than being able to run further and faster (which is good and all, but I’d really like to see some physical changes too!).

Anyhow, trainer. I always thought personal trainers were solely for those who were primarily paid for either winning professional athletic games or simply being really, really, ridiculously goodlooking. Not so! The facility I’m training at is exclusively a personal training studio (meaning everyone working out there is doing it one-on-one with a trainer) and there is a very broad section of clientèle there. People ranged in age from their 20′s to 60′s, of varying fitness levels, and NOBODY in there was good looking enough to be paid for it.

It is, however, exactly as expensive as I thought it would be. Actually – a little more than I thought it would be. I figure, I pay someone $40/week to walk my dog twice weekly, I should value an investment in my own health and fitness at least twice that much. It is most certainly an investment in health and fitness. And certainly more than twice as much as dog walking for my two sessions a week. I had to seriously cut back on some things (shoes, CDs, fancy restaurants, new books) to make it happen. It’s still a lot. It’s a lease on a pretty nice car. But I think it’s worth it.

In any case, I had my first session last night, and even with the “easy” introductory session I worked harder than I ever do without serious prompting. I can probably count on one hand the number of times I’ve sweat like that while exercising. I’m just not good at pushing myself that hard. Few people are (if you are one of them – good for you! Save your pennies, and maybe buy me a CD or something?). Those lunges never would have happened without some serious persuasion.

Also, I’m paying for the knowledge and experience of someone who’s spent a lot of time studying the human body, and exactly how to get it at its peak in the most efficient way possible. There is certainly something to be said for going through an exercise that I’ve done a frillion times before, only to have my posture and method adjusted slightly, upon which said exercise becomes way harder and more effective in the good ways, and way less inclined to hurt me in other ways. It’s an investment in efficient use of time and resources as well.

Anyhow, today I was a bit sore, but felt good. And I go back for more tomorrow. It’ll be an interesting experience, since it’ll be the official “benchmarking” appointment where all the weighing, measuring and otherwise evaluating will happen. I’m not really looking forward to hearing (yet again – since I haven’t exactly recovered from wedding dress shopping where the woman read out the number on her tape measure in disbelief, then measured again and was shocked to get the same result) how very many inches around my ass is – but I am looking forward to seeing how many of those I can lose in the next 9 weeks.